‘I would do more than that to save you.’
‘Oh, do not say so!’ cried he wildly, ‘or you will give me such a desire to live as will make a coward of me.’
‘Curtis suspects you will go northward; either he has had information, or computes it from what you have done already.’
‘He is wrong, then. When I go hence, it shall be to the court-house at Tullamore, where I mean to give myself up.’
‘As what?’
‘As what I am—a rebel, convicted, sentenced, and escaped, and still a rebel.’
‘You do not, then, care for life?’
‘Do I not, for such moments of life as this!’ cried he, as, with a wild rapture, he kissed her hand again and again.
‘And were I to ask you, you would not try to save your life?’
‘To share that life with you there is not anything I would not dare. To live and know you were another’s is more than I can face. Tell me, Nina, is it true you are to be the wife of this soldier? I cannot utter his name.’